Lara McLeod On Progress Over Perfection

Performing Progressiveness

In this episode, Lara McLeod, Global Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at FullStory connects the intersection between identity and DEI work. She opens up about the impact racism, sexism, bias, and stereotypes have on women of color in the legal world and provides solutions for leveling the playing field. Lara offers insight into the difficulties of addressing macro and microaggressions while overcoming the hurdle of tone policing. As a biracial woman, navigating professionalism and past ingrained trauma, this motivated her to create a new blueprint for implementing DEI into the corporate culture. In fact, Lara used her circumstance as an opportunity to build the role she wanted to see and the role she knew was needed. Lara emphasizes the importance of understanding where you want your career to take you, establishing boundaries, and the need for culture shifts. She points out it is imperative to move away from performativity and push towards intrinsic motivation behind inclusion efforts. She provides ways to gauge how diversity is integrated within company structure by looking at who is involved, who is responsible, and how development can occur. Join Lara as she calls her audience to discover their “why” when striving for progress.  

Tune in for perspectives on:
• Foundation and Development
• Navigating Burnout, Boundaries, and Breaking Barriers 
• Pushing Past Tokenization 
• Persistence in Shifting Workplace Culture